Forum for Feb. 3, 2023: ‘The Niceties’ is a treat

Published: 02-03-2023 3:07 PM

‘The Niceties’ is a treat

I had the privilege of attending the current Shaker Bridge production of The Niceties in Enfield last Saturday night. If you have not yet discovered the Shaker Bridge Theatre, you have a treat ahead of you, especially if you were to see The Niceties this weekend — the show’s closing weekend.

I use the word “treat” in many respects — the acting this little theater brings to the stage is never short of excellent and more often than not, it is outstanding. The small size of the theater creates truly intimate and impactful experiences; this is especially the case with the current production. What also makes The Niceties impactful is the exceptional way in which the playwright, Eleanor Burgess, and no doubt its director, Grant Neale, weave together the complex and often nuanced reality in this country of white privilege for those of us who are white and the daily lived experience of racism and oppression for people who are Black.

Set in a history professor’s office in a prestigious university in Connecticut the actors, a young Black female student and activist and a middle-aged white, self-identified progressive female professor, unveil systemic racism through a series of micro- (and not-so-micro-) aggressions, implicit bias, and the overt system of power inherent in education — post-secondary and without much of a jump public education K-12.

So, when I say treat, be aware that treat also means being given the opportunity to see the world as it is more clearly and perhaps, as a result, take another step toward dismantling the racism that is woven so deeply throughout our history and within our current day to day experiences.

Maura Hart

Plainfield

Russian reading

I read with interest an article that asked “Should we be patronizing Russian Literature and Arts when they are engaged in a brutal war with a peaceful neighbor?” It’s a good question.

I have recently re-read August 1914 by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. I ran into a passage that is quite apt to the Russia of today.

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Often enough lately I find myself part way through one of your commentary articles wondering if I am being fed nonsense.

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You should not be lending credence to such misleading stuff.

At the very least the headline should read, “The crisis in democracy is not all in our heads!”

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